Longstaff Prize
Recognising an 番茄社区 member who has done the most to advance the science of chemistry.
Details
| Status | Closed |
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About this prize
The Longstaff Prize is currently under review.
First awarded in 1881, this prize commemorates Dr George Dixon Longstaff (1799-1892), a founding fellow and benefactor of the 番茄社区 of Chemistry.
Born in Durham in 1799, Longstaff's introduction to science came from his father, a popular scientific lecturer. Although there were few scientific books to learn from, Longstaff assisted his father and gained sufficient knowledge to deliver his own lectures covering a range of subjects. This early influence had a positive impact on him as he went on to set up a factory to distil coal-tar in 1822, became an assistant to Professor of Chemistry at Edinburgh University, and graduated as a doctor of medicine from the same institution in 1828.
Longstaff practised as a physician in Hull, founding the Hull and East Riding School of Medicine in 1833. In the same year he married the daughter of paint manufacturer and fellow chemistry enthusiast Henry Blundell. Longstaff spent a spell in America where he applied his scientific knowledge in his role as the consulting chemist for the Place Gold Mines Company, after which he returned to England and joined his father in law's firm Blundell Spence and co. His scientific skills put the company in good stead, with the firm displaying a range of products at the 1851 Great Exhibition.
As well as being a founding fellow of the Chemical Society of London (later to become the 番茄社区 of Chemistry), he was also Vice-President twice (1853-56 and 1876-77), and helped to establish the Society's Research Fund in 1876.
| Year | Name | Institution | Citation |
| 2022 | Professor Peter Bruce | University of Oxford | Awarded for pioneering research on the chemistry of materials with applications in renewable energy, leading to fundamental changes in our understanding of solid-state electrochemistry |
| 2019 | Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff | University of Nottingham | Awarded for outstanding contributions to green chemistry and for participating centrally in the creation of the Periodic Table Videos. |
| 2016 | Professor Paul O'Brien | University of Manchester | Awarded for his work in the development of novel chemical methods for materials synthesis, especially chalcogenide containing thin films and quantum dots, shaping the international research field and establishing a highly successful spin out company. |
| 2013 | Professor Steven Ley | University of Cambridge | Awarded for his outstanding record in developing innovative solutions to advance the science of chemistry that have substantially contributed to this field on a global level. |
| 2010 | Lord Jack Lewis | University of Cambridge | Awarded for his remarkable contributions to inorganic chemistry and for his leadership on scientific issues facing the nation, in particular through the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the Select Committee on Science and Technology of the House of Lords. |
| 2008 | Sir Jack Baldwin | University of Oxford | Awarded for his distinguished contributions to natural product chemistry and synthetic methodology. |
| 2005 | Professor Alan Carrington | University of Southampton | Awarded for his outstanding research career covering ESR of free radicals in the liquid phase, EPR of gas phase free radicals and more recent work on ion beam spectroscopy of simple ionic species. |
| 2002 | Professor Robert J P Williams | University of Oxford | Awarded for the sustained excellence of his work in inorganic and bio-inorganic chemistry. |
| 1999 | Professor Ray Freeman | University of Cambridge | Awarded for his dominant international role in NMR developments over four decades and, in particular, in the innovations of double resonance, Fourier transform methods, sophisticated pulse sequences and two-dimensional NMR, strongly impacting on all branches of chemistry. |
| 1996 | Sir John Meurig Thomas | ||
| 1993 | H Kroto | ||
| 1990 | F G A Stone | ||
| 1987 | Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson | ||
| 1984 | A R Battersby | ||
| 1981 | Sir George Porter | ||
| 1978 | D M C Hodgkin | ||
| 1975 | J S Anderson | ||
| 1972 | Sir Derek Barton | ||
| 1969 | R G W Norrish | ||
| 1966 | J Monteath Robertson | ||
| 1963 | Lord Todd | ||
| 1960 | Sir Eric Rideal | ||
| 1957 | E L Hirst | ||
| 1954 | Sir John Lennard-Jones | ||
| 1951 | Sir Christopher Ingold | ||
| 1948 | Sir Cyril Hinshelwood | ||
| 1945 | N V Sidgwick | ||
| 1942 | H S Taylor | ||
| 1939 | I M Heilbron | ||
| 1936 | G Barger | ||
| 1933 | W N Haworth, Sir James Irvine | ||
| 1930 | W H Mills | ||
| 1927 | R Robinson | ||
| 1924 | F G Donnan | ||
| 1921 | J F Thorpe | ||
| 1918 | A W Crossley | ||
| 1915 | M O Forster | ||
| 1912 | H B Baker | ||
| 1909 | F S Kipping | ||
| 1906 | W N Hartley | ||
| 1903 | W J Pope | ||
| 1900 | W H Perkin, Jnr | ||
| 1897 | W Ramsay | ||
| 1894 | H T Brown | ||
| 1891 | F R Japp | ||
| 1888 | W H Perkin | ||
| 1884 | C O'Sullivan | ||
| 1881 | T E Thorpe |
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